7.2.2: Capital Ship Systems and Equipment
Like vehicles and characters, a capital ship wouldn’t be much more than a pile of metal without any equipment installed; it is the ship’s equipment that gives it its basic characteristics and (perhaps more importantly) determines how much butt it can kick at a moment’s notice. It is also important for the more mundane tasks of research and exploration, which will be necessary for characters to engage in from time to time. Capital ships have several main systems; they are similar to vehicle systems for the most part, though there are some very minor differences. All capital ships have slots reserved for their basic equipment, namely Engines, Armor and Shields; the first instance of these pieces of equipment installed never counts against the ship's total accessory count. The following outlines the basic systems found aboard capital ships: *'Engines': Capital ships generate power via a main reactor system; by-products of these reactions (usually high energy plasma streams) are channeled to the ship's thrusters or Faster-Than-Light drive system depending upon its current flight mode. The actual pieces of propulsive equipment on most ships are modular and can be swapped out of their nacelles for new modules fairly easily. Drive systems usually include some kind of inertial dampening system that allows both ship and crew to survive the massive accelerations they generate as well as a series of cooling ducts. The ship's Engine Class determines its maximum speed and fuel efficiency. *'Armor': Most ships have Armor plating attached to the ship's outer hull. Armor is designed for several functions, including crew safety and the mitigation of damage to the chassis in the event of a collision. Armor is also effective at reducing the amount of permanent damage a capital ship receives due to incoming weapons fire. *'Shields': Shields perform many of the same jobs as Armor. They have two key advantages over Armor: they can be added without acquiring an HD penalty and they regenerate over time. Their main disadvantage is a substantial increase in their cost for an equivalent level of protection. Shield systems consist of an array of emitters embedded into the hull as well as a capacitor system that provides steady power to them; the ambient strength of a ship's Shields is based solely on the amount of power the capacitor can provide to the emitters while still holding its charge. *'Weapons': Capital ship weapons are among the most powerful known; they are designed mainly to fight other capital ships and must be powerful enough to cause significant damage to any target. Weapons are included when a ship needs an offensive arm for one reason or another, be it to fend off pirates, to provide extra cutting power or to just kick butt. Capital ship weapons come in three varieties: Guns, Ordnance and "Special" weapons (which are weapons that function neither as Guns nor Ordnance, such as tractor beams). *'Accessories': Accessories are additional systems designed to help a ship perform specific tasks such as terraforming, cargo hauling, passenger ferrying, and weapons delivery. The smallest capital ships only hold two accessory systems while the largest can handle over a hundred. Capital ship accessories tend to be harder to swap out than vehicle accessories since most have to be hard-wired into the design; as a result, capital ships make a greater use of mountpoints than vehicles, including the use of temporary modules attached to the exterior of the ship's hull for specific missions (which are known as pods). Though in terms of overall measurement not all accessory slots are of the same size, they are treated as such for the sake of simplicity. In addition to these basic systems, capital ships have sensors, communications arrays, computers, workspaces and command-and-control areas (the ship's bridge, its combat information center and so forth). These systems tend to be hardwired into the ship's chassis and are included in its cost; they can't be removed or modified directly though the function of some of them can be augmented through the addition of accessories. The following Chapter is an overview of the pieces of basic equipment, what each can do and how much they cost. GMs who are interested in creating their own equipment for ships are more than welcome to do so (for instructions on how to create such equipment, see Chapter 10.2.6.) Engines Engines provide electrical and propulsive power; they directly determine how fast the ship may go during travel and the number of range increments per round it may move during combat. In addition to being capable of propelling a ship faster, higher Classes of Engine are more fuel efficient than lower ones (see Chapter 8.1). Engine *HD Effect: -1 HD/BHD per Class level Shields Shield emitters are small external arrays that generate protective barriers around the outer hull of a ship, in essence adding an extra layer of Armor to its hull. Capital ship shield emitters require power from an external capacitor in order to function. This substantially increases their cost but also vastly increases their effectiveness; it generally requires the use of specialized weaponry such as torpedoes in order to ensure a successful assault against a capital ship by fightercraft. A capital ship may only have one Shield system installed unless a Backup Shield Generator accessory is also installed on the ship (both the Generator and the extra Shield systems are counted as added accessories). Shields fall under the category of Defenses. *Type: Defenses/Shield *Availability: Starfaring Age *Regeneration: 10% total SHP plus Engineer's Defenses Skill score every ten rounds. *Nebula Hit Point Reduction: -500 SHP when located in a nebula. *Gun/Missile Damage Reduction: None *Effects: None Armor A capital ship’s Armor consists of metal plates attached to its outer hull designed to give it extra protection. It is not a required system but many crews are still glad to have it despite the added cost and performance degradation. Capital Ships are limited in the amount of Armor they can utilize without having the Reinforced Chassis accessory installed based on their chassis type. Armor falls under the category of Defenses '''and can only be repaired or replaced while the ship is in dry-dock. *Type: Defenses/Armor *Gun/Missile Damage Reduction: None *Effects: +1 HD/BHD/FHD per 10 centimeters (round up). Weapons Capital ships can carry and utilize various forms of weapons systems; the use of weapons aboard ships is covered more in depth in Chapter 9.4. As with vehicles, capital ship weapons do not count as accessories in and of themselves. However, in order to be placed aboard a ship, a '''Weapons Station accessory is required. Weapons Stations in general determine the number of weapons a ship carries and defines the combat arcs into which a weapon may be fired (for details, see Chapter 9.4). Weapons stations are counted as accessories. Weapons Stations are described as a phrase of categorical descriptors with the following form: , The specific descriptors along with their effects are listed in the table below. As with vehicles, capital ships use a system of relative bearings to determine line-of-sight to their targets. A weapon station's default bearing (i.e. the direction in which it is normally aimed) should be included along with the total number of degrees of its firing arc; the indicated bearing will be assumed to be the center-point of its firing arc. Weapons stations on capital ships may use the same set of designated firing arcs as listed in Chapter 6.2.3. Bearing information is necessary due to the various grids that may be utilized via the game's flexible combat engine (for more information, see Chapter 9.1). For example, a Weapons Station with a descriptor of "Gun Hard-Point (0°, no arc)" indicates a non-armored, single-weapon platform capable of holding one gun and firing that weapon along a straight line ahead of the ship. A more complex example is an "Armored Gatling Nonuple Heavy Ordnance Turret (Forward Over-the-Shoulder), Double Bay, 50 cm". This indicates a weapons station that has 50 centimeters of armor, has an increased firing rate, has nine heavy ordnance launchers, can fire on bearings between 210°-150° and has a magazine capable of holding up to 200 weapons at the same time. Weapons Stations may be explicitly targeted via Targeting actions. A Weapons Station can sustain 100 points of damage before being destroyed, unless it has been given armored plating; an armored station can sustain 100 points plus the amount of AHP it has been given. When a Weapon Station is Targeted, Core Damage will not occur unless the Station is destroyed in the attack; 1% Core Damage occurs when a Weapons Station is destroyed. Weapons come in three main varieties: guns (multi-use projectile weapons utilizing one of several different methods of causing mechanical damage), ordnance (single-use high-explosive projectiles capable of causing a single burst of massive damage) and special weaponry (non-projectile weapons of any nature, such as beam weaponry). The following weapons are available for use on capital ships. Each has the following set of statistics: *Type: The general category of weapon being described. *Name: What the specific type of weapon is called. *Service Date: The Earth-equivalent year at which the weapon will become available for use. *Cost: The amount the weapon adds to the ship's total cost. *Refire: The number of times the weapon may apply damage during the course of a standard round provided it is charged (for details, see Chapter 9.3). *Range: The maximum distance in range increments a target may be from the firing ship in order to use the weapon effectively. *Damage: The amount of damage the weapon applies to a target on an indicated hit. *Effects: Various sundry effects the weapon may have/cause. For a list of general examples of weapons effects, see Chapter 10.2.6. Note that the statistics for weapons outlined herein are for standard weapons; Military capital ships may adjust the damage, re-fire rate and range of weapons as needed to suit their specific needs. Doing so adjusts the cost of the weapon using the formula below, with each multiplier expressed as a ratio of the new statistic to the old statistic rounded to the nearest hundredth: final cost = base cost * damage multiplier * range multiplier * refire multiplier For example, the base statistics for a civilian-grade Laser Cannon are a cost of ¤1,000, 18 points of damage, range of 5, and a refire rate of 5. If we wanted to adjust the damage to 30 points and change the refire to ten, we'd have to adjust the price to ¤3,340 (¤1,000 * (30/18) * (5/5) * (10/5) = ¤1,000 * 1.67 * 1 * 2 = ¤3,340). Finally, while the following weapons sets are available specifically for capital ships, they may also utilize any weapon of any type listed for vehicles; for information on these weapons, see Chapter 6.2.3. Guns Heavy Ordnance Special Weaponry Capital Ship-Specific Accessories Accessories are items that can be installed on a capital ship in order to augment its abilities. There is no limit to the types of modules that can be added to a ship, though the number of additional systems is limited by its chassis type and weight class. Capital ships are allowed to pick accessories from the following list only. Each capital ship-specific accessory has the following set of statistics: *Name: This is what the accessory is called. *Cost: This lists the cost of the accessory in credits. *Effect: This indicates what the accessory does; any additional notes on it are included here. Pods As previously mentioned, pods are add-on modules that attach to the outer hull of a capital ship. Pods themselves don't count as accessories but the ship on which they are to be mounted must have an available pod mount accessory of the correct type installed. There are two types of pods: permanent and expendable. Permanent pods remain attached to their mounts at all times; they are not designed to be removed unless the ship is in dry-dock. Expendable pods have a specific one-time use; they detach from the ship when they are activated. Permanent pods may be attached to an Expendable Pod Mount, but expendable pods must attach to an Expendable Pod Mount; they may not be attached to a Permanent Pod Mount. Like Weapons Stations, Pods may be the explicit targets of Targeting actions; they can sustain 100 points of damage before being destroyed. Unlike Weapons Stations, Pods may never be armored for additional survivability. When a Pod is Targeted, Core Damage will not occur unless it is destroyed; 1% Core Damage occurs when a Pod is destroyed. Pods have the following stats: *Name: This is what the Pod is called. *Cost: This lists the cost of the Pod in credits. *Effect: This indicates what the Pod does; any additional notes on it are included here. Bonuses Finally, some capital ships may have special abilities by virtue of their design, referred to as bonuses. These abilities can make the ship more resistant to particular kinds of damage or make them more versatile. Naturally, ships of this nature have a tendency to be significantly more expensive. Bonuses are unlike other capital ship equipment in that they affect the ship as a whole and their cost is listed as a multiplier. The multipliers from bonuses are applied after the remainder of the ship's cost has been tallied as outlined in Chapter 7.2. Bonuses have the following stats: *Name: This is a general description of the bonus. *Cost Multiplier: This indicates the multiplier to be applied to the ship's final total cost. *Effect: This is what the bonus does. ---- NEXT: 7.3 Capital Ship Catalog PREVIOUS: 7.2.1 Capital Ship Chassis TOP ---- Category:WCRPG